Over an hour of swingin' jazz
September 18, 2015 10:12 AM   Subscribe

 
Dig those crazy pyjamas.
posted by clvrmnky at 10:31 AM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


Ray Ellis also composed for animated shows Fat Albert and Star Trek, as well as lots of hit pop arranging.
posted by lothar at 10:39 AM on September 18, 2015


It's just a picture of a robot.

I love this music, and the show it scored, so much.
posted by Gelatin at 10:39 AM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


God that show was a trip. But it was no ROCKET ROBIN HOOD!
posted by GuyZero at 10:43 AM on September 18, 2015 [5 favorites]


Ralph Bakshi was the animation director and EP for seasons 2 and 3 for this show.
posted by griphus at 10:43 AM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


Guy Zero, I remember that show, good Lord. That, and Hercules. Somehow little me understood that they were crap, even then...
posted by LN at 11:12 AM on September 18, 2015


Rocket Robin Hood: making Hanna-Barbera look like Studio Ghibli.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:33 AM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


My spidey sense is tingling, daddy-o
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:57 AM on September 18, 2015


This is great, thanks.
Folks who dig this might also enjoy this crazy Batman record featuring an uncredited Sun Ra.
posted by zoinks at 12:13 PM on September 18, 2015 [3 favorites]


Neal Hefti's original theme for Batman gets very funky jazztastic 40s in when the titles would normally be finished.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:46 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


Hercules was the worst. The background flesh tone was a visibly different colour from the foreground/animated flesh tone so every character had a line along their neck clearly marking what was and wasn't actually animated.

Also, walk into a room and say "GEE HERC" in a high-pitched voice and immediately identify all Gen-X Canadians.
posted by GuyZero at 12:47 PM on September 18, 2015 [4 favorites]


I brought Toot along! He can't talk. Can't talk!

Just toots.

Just toots...
posted by Kevin Street at 1:48 PM on September 18, 2015


The background flesh tone was a visibly different colour from the foreground/animated flesh tone so every character had a line along their neck clearly marking what was and wasn't actually animated

This is the reason why every Hannah Barbara character has a collar or a tie of some sort.
posted by Space Coyote at 2:01 PM on September 18, 2015 [8 favorites]


This is the reason why every Hannah Barbara character has a collar or a tie of some sort.

Mind blown.
posted by GuyZero at 2:13 PM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


It's like listening to Peter Gunn on acid.
Awesome! Thanks.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:22 PM on September 18, 2015


Neal Hefti's original theme for Batman gets very funky jazztastic 40s in when the titles would normally be finished.

Give me the Marketts version, every time.
 
posted by Herodios at 2:31 PM on September 18, 2015


The first thing the massively successful "Unbeatable Squirrel Girl" comic* did was lampshade the '60s Spider-Man TV theme with revised lyrics in a scene where she kicked butts and ate nuts. I can never imagine it in my mind the same way again. ("To her / life is a great big acorn / where there's a city crime-torn / you'll find the Squirrel Girl")

And note my previous comment about "The Marvel Super Heroes Show" of a year earlier with its "living comic" bad animation and catchy theme songs (clips mostly taken down by Disney).

*written by Ryan North, webcomic dinosaur wrangler, Death Machine operator, alt-Shakespeare author, Adventure Time comic scribe and "guy in a hole" who gave ME a plug.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:33 PM on September 18, 2015


BTW, thanks for this, Shepherd. I reckonize every one of these cues from the original.
 
posted by Herodios at 2:34 PM on September 18, 2015


Someone turned this posting all the way down to absolute zero!
posted by clvrmnky at 3:21 PM on September 18, 2015


Wha-wha-wha-wha!

DUNADUN.
posted by Kevin Street at 3:39 PM on September 18, 2015


Neal Hefti's original theme for Batman gets very funky jazztastic 40s in when the titles would normally be finished.

Paul Weller's interpretation was groovy.
posted by ovvl at 5:41 PM on September 18, 2015


I remember that show, good Lord. That, and Hercules.

Now I'm watching The Mighty Hercules again...

(I vaguely recall that the animators for Hercules might have shared a loop of some kinda weird big-eyed flying vulture with some other budget animation studios?)
posted by ovvl at 6:03 PM on September 18, 2015


The first thing the massively successful "Unbeatable Squirrel Girl" comic* did was lampshade the '60s Spider-Man TV theme with revised lyrics in a scene where she kicked butts and ate nuts.

Now I want someone to do an Unbeatable Squirrel Girl cartoon in that style.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:06 PM on September 18, 2015


Cool trivia: the singer for The Mighty Hercules theme song also did some other cool things...
posted by ovvl at 6:29 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


With the themes for Rocket Robin Hood, The Mighty Hercules and Astroboy, there was an embarrassment of riches for dirty minded, satirical ten-year-old schoolboys back in the day. Long before rap existed we'd improvise our own versions of those songs while singing loudly over the credits, then collapse into helpless laughter as the show went to commercial. But we couldn't make fun of the Spider-Man theme. We could make up new lyrics and adapt them for other heroes, but Spider-Man himself was too cool to satirize.
posted by Kevin Street at 6:38 PM on September 18, 2015


This is notable because, while music from later seasons was available in the KPM Record Library, this music from the first season has been mostly lost:
The problem for years was that no living source could remember from which music library the background ditties were pulled. Doubling the problem is the fact that these amazing instrumentals, most likely, did not have a name - let alone any musicians credited with composing them. As often is the case with music made specifically for the purpose of generic use, whether it be for radio station promos, commercials, or in this case, a low-budget cartoon, the fly-by-night companies that produced this stuff often went out of business and their many hours worth of musical reels soon disappeared, ending up who-knows-where. Furthermore, it can be nearly impossible to unearth music that was used for a particular show when the reels were never marked "background music from Spider-man" but instead with titles like "action scene," "city scape," "outer space," or "police chase."

These recordings, called needle-drops in the trade, were first used by local theaters to enhance showings of silent films. Later they were used on the soundtracks of low-budget films, as well as on radio and eventually television. Hanna Barbera used an excellent up-to-date needle drop library produced by Capitol Records.
Other people have made similar efforts to scrape and assemble the Ray Ellis from first-season episodes of the show. But the work done in the FPP link is really impressive and comprehensive. As 11db11 says in the YouTube comments:
- I cut out every piece of music from all 3 seasons (that took like a month)
- Then I grouped them together (multiple incidents of each song)
- Then I built each song from the best parts of the multiple versions.
- I had to EQ each individual clip to even the levels, bass, treble ...
posted by straight at 9:16 PM on September 18, 2015 [5 favorites]


And if you can only revisit one of those old Spider-Man episodes, make it the utterly bizarre Revolt in the Fifth Dimension (allegedly set to a stock music track titled 'LSD').
posted by straight at 9:58 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


This feels like watching an episode of Spider-Man directed by David Lynch. Great stuff.
posted by Missiles K. Monster at 1:30 PM on September 19, 2015


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